Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Middletown Democrat Thugs Vandalize Election Signs

By now, we're used to the regular election sign wars in Middletown: signs being stolen, moved or taken down. It usually happens to Republican signs, and an active member of the Democrat executive committee was arrested and subjected to a fine a couple of years ago, after being caught in the act.

But this year, the sleazy Midddletown Democrat thugs are using new tactics. After taking down at least one 4x4 board sign, since last Friday night they started spraying those 4x4s with grafitti. It happened almost every night for the past 4-5 days, and some of those hoodlums are even tagging them with gang signs. You can see this happening on Tindall Rd, East Rd, Leonardville Rd and other places.

Maybe it's time for Joe Caliendo to remind his thugs that this is not Hudson or Union county, and this kind of gang vandalism is not welcome in Middletown. Or maybe the local committee people would know more. Most of the thuggery occurred in District 23 (Thomas Mahon and Annaliesa Meloro). It was also seen in the neighboring districts, 13 (Steven Borbely and Lynda Cordasco) and 34 (Peter Geronimo and Mary Yule).

Below you can see an example of this new type of Democrat vandalism.


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Candidates Face the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce

On Oct 13th, the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce invited Congressional and county candidates for a forum at the Bayshore Senior Center in Keansburg. The crowd was smaller than you'd expect, but most candidates showed up. It wasn't a debate, and no Q&A. Each candidate received the same series of questions in advance and were invited to respond.

Scott Sipprelle, running for Congress in the 12th district, was first. Probably has the most business credentials from all the candidates present, and he relates to the audience. Scott attacks the healthcare bill for the provision requiring all businesses that receive more than $600 from another business to send a 1099. In his example, if you're a transportation company, and buy gas at dozens of gas stations in the Northeast, identifying all of them and getting their tax ID's (since they're all independently operated) would be a nightmare.

Scott's opponent, Rush Holt, isn't here. But he has an excuse. He doesn't know where Monmouth County is.

6th district candidate Anna Little speaks about her conservative history and attacks the healthcare bill. She makes it clear she'll fight to repeal it. She speaks about her vision of water transportation in the Bayshore, from South Amboy all the way to Red Bank. She advocates the "flat tax" and at the end mentions the Fair Tax.

I can't say I wasn't surprised that Anna's opponent, Frank Pallone showed up. He doesn't like to appear in public recently, and it took guts for him to come face a group of small business owners, considering that everything he does in Congress is against business owners. Even more, he came well prepared and was on point with his answers. I don't agree with them, but he didn't avoid the issues, even if he read most of his speech.

One of the questions all the Congressional candidates were asked was whether they support the healthcare bill. Frank (who repeatedly said it's his bill, that he wrote it himself) spoke for over 10 minutes about it, but didn't say whether he voted for it or not, or whether he supports it or not. I'm yet to find a Democrat incumbent who's boast his vote for the healthcare bill in his/her campaign speeches/ads, except Harry Reid. Pallone said he's actively working to fix the bill. Does this mean he accepts it's broken?

Eventually, a surrogate for Rush Holt found the Chamber of Commerce. She struggled to read his answers, and not even halfway through her plea, people were leaving. I can't say it was more or less exciting than if Holt would've spoken. It was the same boring, meaningless blabber than you'd expect of him.

John D'Amico, Democrat running for Freeholder, was almost as boring as Holt's surrogate (his Dem colleague on the Monmouth Cty Board of Freeholders, Amy Mallet). It felt like half an hour and can't remember one thing he said.

Tom Arnone, mayor of Neptune City and Rep. candidate for freeholder, was probably the most interesting speaker. He didn't have any notes, he spoke completely free about his achievements as Mayor and President of the NJ Conference of Mayors, as well as his plans once he's elected.

Tom was followed by a blonde lady wearing a Halloween pirate costume. Her name is Janice, she's from Spring Lake, and she's running for freeholder as a Dem. She spoke for about 10 minutes about what she's done as a councilwoman to improve the business climate, and she would do to help companies, how the freeholders should get involved in business, and what elected representatives should do to help small businesses. And then all of a sudden, she ends with "... and I think Government should get out of the way of small businesses!". For anybody who listened to her speaking exclusively about how Government should get involved in the business environment, it must've been like a shock.

The Dem candidate for Sheriff, a short lawyer named Brophy, spoke briefly. He focused on spending by the current Sheriff's Department. According to him, the department is "losing about $2,500 per day. Over the year, this adds up to $8-9 million". Hmmmm. Maybe, but he's wrong by a 0 (a factor of 10). Won't blame him personally for this, after all if you're an Obama supporter you start mistaking trillions for billions and billions for millions.

Last candidate to speak was Brophy's opponent, current Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden. He boasted his experience, as undersheriff for many years and acting Sheriff since the beginning of 2010. He challenged Brophy's calculations and said they're not losing money from the federal contracts. And he informed his young opponent that the department's contracts and budget are determined by the freeholders, not the Sheriff.

It was a good, informative forum, but I would've liked more local business owners to show up. Also, the ability to ask direct questions to the candidates would've been nice, but in that case I'd probably still be there at this hour.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Road to Hell

by Thomas Stokes


The road to hell, it is said, is paved with good intentions.

The current economic crisis, resulting from the sub prime mortgage meltdown, is certainly a perfect example of this.

Politicians had the major role in creating the current problems, starting with the admirable intention of having low-income families own their own homes.

The Community Reinvestment Act, passed by a Democrat Congress in 1977 to reduce alleged discriminatory credit practices in low income areas actually encouraged lending to uncreditworthy borrowers. Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s, raised the amount of mortgages issued to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers, and allowed the securitization of CRA-regulated mortgages, even though many were subprime.

Those who opposed this faced charges of racism from the more liberal politicians and activist groups like SEIU and ACORN (both of these organizations are international and no information is provided as to foreign funding of their political activities in the US).

In 1982, a Democrat Congress passed the Alternative Mortgage Transactions Parity Act (AMTPA), which allowed creditors to write adjustable-rate mortgages, including option adjustable-rate, balloon-payment and interest-only mortgages.

Approximately 80% of subprime mortgages were adjustable-rate mortgages.

By 2008, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned, either directly or through mortgage pools they sponsored, $5.1 trillion in residential mortgages, about half the total U.S. mortgage market.

When concerns arose in September 2008 regarding the ability of Fannie and Freddie to make good on their guarantees, Washington placed the companies into a conservatorship, effectively nationalizing them at the taxpayers' expense.

What has been the result of this?

The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's. In 2009, almost 3 million homeowners faced foreclosure. Huge drops in home values for those who manged to keep their homes with many now "under water" (values below the mortgage owed). Double digit unemployment, poverty levels higher than when President Johnson waged a "War on Poverty". This attempt to help people has not only hurt those same low-income families. but has also hurt each and every one of us.

In New Jersey, politicians have created the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) which imposes mandates on communities, like Middletown, to provide low-income, high density housing at taxpayer expense. This has a major impact on services, especially schools, and the property taxes we pay.

Professional politicians, of both parties, always searching for more votes, ignore the unintended (but not unforseen) consequences of their actions. Yes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Friday, October 1, 2010

November is Coming to Middletown

October 1st, 32 days before election day, the AFP bus made a stop in Middletown for the grand opening of the Bayshore Tea Party HQ. Bayshore TP is one of the first tea party groups that appeared in NJ in early 2009. Since then, it continued to grow in numbers, it became more and more active in the local community and is currently conducting an unprecedented grassroots campaign for Anna Little. And now, due to AFP, its NJ director Steve Lonegan, and its grassroots campaign November is Coming, Bayshore has its one HQ!




There are a lot of local patriots who made all of this possible: Barbara, Dwight, Brian, Bob, Lynn and many others. They achieved so much in just over one year and! Having Steve Lonegan and the November is Coming bus stop here is a great honor for the tea party.

Steve addressed a crowd of almost 100 people, gathered in a parking lot on busy Route 35, and started by saying that the current tea party efforts will make "Acorn look like Little League baseball". In 2006 and 2008, taxpayer-funded Acorn conducted a very aggressive GOTV campaign, but that's being dwarfed now by the more numerous, more dedicated, more enthusiastic conservative volunteers.







What the AFP is offering Bayshore TP, besides a very nice HQ, is a state-of-the-art phone banking system and a micro-targeting voter database, which will optimize the volunteers time so they can reach those voters most likely to swing their votes. It cost AFP a lot of money raised through private donations, but it's all free for the Bayshore tea partiers!



Anna Little also stopped by and energized the crowd with a short speech, while trucks carrying huge Little signs were driving up and down the highway. Not even a disgruntled liberal neighbor who called the cops couldn't interrupt the party. Mayor Scharfenberger of Middletown and township candidate Kevin Settembrino stopped by, as well as representatives from Scott Sipprelle's campaign and the Monmouth County Republican Committee, signaling that all Republicans in NJ are joining forces against the Democrats.



AFP is targeting three incumbent Democrats, Adler, Pallone and Holt, with the last two being in the coverage area of the Bayshore TP. Steve Lonegan predicted a 100-seat swing in the House, and Anna Little, Scott Sipprelle and Jon Runyan will be part of this new wave of Republican representatives.

The Bayshore Tea Party HQ is located at 275 Route 35 in Middletown, just North of Pool world. Please stop by and join the conservative grassroots efforts!

November is Coming

The "November is Coming" headquarters in Middletown has its grand Friday night at 7pm. It will be managed by the Bayshore Tea Party, being the first tea party HQ sponsored by AFP. Here's the press release:



New Jersey’s Flagship ‘November Is Coming’ Tea Party Headquarters will be first of its kind in nation, Friday, October 1st, 7PM

RED BANK– Americans for Prosperity is announcing the grand opening of its ‘November Is Coming’ Tea Party headquarters in Middletown, located at 275 Highway 35, on Friday, October 1st at 7PM. The opening will coincide with arrival of the free market organization’s ‘November Is Coming’ Bus Tour.

The ‘November Is Coming’ Bus Tour will be making stops in key districts across the state earlier in the day, including Cherry Hill, Toms River, and Somerset.

New Jersey state director Steve Lonegan hailed the opening of the headquarters as groundbreaking.

“The Tea Party movement has been enormously effective in recruiting activists. These patriots have mobilized for rallies and protests but now they will have a central place where they can meet, organize and execute the grassroots voter reach out that is necessary to ensure a conservative victory in November.

“This is truly a remarkable step. Nowhere else in the country do Tea Party activists have such an operation in place. All the momentum and energy in the Tea Party movement will now be focused on our ‘November Is Coming’ grassroots effort. They realize the time for rallies is over and the time to get the troops on the ground to make a difference has come.

“The passion and intensity in the conservative Tea Party movement is palpable. And now these activists will be using this energy toward the biggest voter education and outreach effort ever undertaken by the conservative movement. By the time we are done, this will make ACORN look like Little League baseball.”

Activists participating in the ‘November Is Coming’ project will be encouraged to go door-to-door and implement a state-of-the-art phone banking system as part of a citizen education effort. Activists will let people know where incumbent representatives stand on the issues and encourage them to contact their representatives to tell them to stop the out-of-control spending and big government policies.

The New Jersey campaign will focus on educating voters about the big government, big spending records of incumbents of Frank Pallone, John Adler, and Rush Holt.

The grand opening of the November Is Coming Tea Party headquarters is free and open to all conservative Tea Party activists.

What: Grand Opening of November Is Coming Tea Party Headquarters – Middletown

Who: Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Activists

When: Friday, October 1st at 7 p.m.
Where: New Jersey November Is Coming Headquarters
275 Highway 35
Red Bank, NJ 07701

Media: Media are invited to attend. Please contact Michael Proto at mproto@afphq.org or (201) 487-8844/(201) 281-2700.

For more information, please visit www.NovemberIsComing.com